So many milestones in space!

I'll chime in at the end with a political note - about the Democrats' incredible circular firing squad.... But first a whole slew of wonderful stuff about our outward vision, ambition and opportunities to go boldly forth!  If we prove worthy.

== Moon and more! ==

Congratulations on China’s Chang’e-4 mission to land a rover on the moon’s far side,in a potentially ice-bearing crater near the south pole. It's a milestone for all of humanity… as were the ten incredible U.S. space missions in 2018. Data will be relayed by the Queqiao craft, the first comms satellite to settle into the 2^nd Earth Moon Lagrange point 37,000 miles farther away, another terrific feat. (See a cool picture of the lunar far side with Earth in background.)

“The Chang’e-4 rover carries ground-penetrating radar to figure out what the structure of the Moon is like underneath the surface of the basin, which could tell us more about how this area formed. It will also have an instrument designed to figure out what the surface is made of in this region,” reports the Verge.  Though being solar powered, it can't venture into the very same permanently-shadowed corners where subsurface ice may lurk. An irony.

China plans to launch another robotic mission to the Moon next year called Chang’e-5, which is designed to return samples. China also hopes to put people on the Moon, and we should help! It’s kind of a bar mitzvah for up and coming nations… and nothing the U.S. has to prove. 

But the sterile, useless Moon is a stupid place for the U.S. to aim its efforts. Humanity is going there anyway, propelled by desperate symbolism. America should do things that only they can do… with partners like Japan and Elon and Planetary Resources... like go where the riches are. 

Ah, but it is a close-convenient target. Israel hopes soon to be the fourth nation to do a robotic lunar landing.

== Farther out! ==

What a roll humanity is on! A while back the Japanese Hayabusa probes spectacularly explored a potentially valuable asteroid. The Parker solar probe broke records on its first approach to the sun (see below), and late last year the Insight craft gloriously landed on Mars. 

Now comes the NASA Osiris-REx's rendezvous with its targeted asteroid, Bennu, aiming for sample collection and return to Earth. 

And Kepler retired after multiplying the number of known planets a hundred-fold. And TESS launched, aiming to multiply that by twenty! As well as SpaceX nailing it, even when they don't. And news that fear-of-Elon has driven ULA right into Ol' Jeff's arms (heh.)

Another grand space milestone! Announced by Ed Stone. Forty-one years after it launched into space, NASA’s Voyager 2 probe has exited our solar bubble and entered the region between stars. Its twin, Voyager 1, made this historic crossing in 2012. Edward Stone, the Voyager mission’s project scientist, and former JPL head. Congratulations Ed, and JPL and us!

A side thought. Our competence has theological significance. I mean that, literally. We may be alone and doing this purely as a projection of weird evolution. But if not? Then any theology that glowers at science, demanding obsequious humility, is clearly and decisively wrong. If there are intentions behind the way we are, then those intentions are clearly for us to be bold explorers and co-creators.... or else why are we so good at it?

An expansive thought at the dawn of an eventful year, while our advances in space and science utterly disprove all the narratives of despair and gloom. Now grab your neighbors by the lapels and tell them.

== To the sun - and way beyond ==

NASA's Parker Solar Probe.Over 12 days in October and November, Parker smashed two long-standing records, becoming the closest ever human-sent object to the sun and the fastest spacecraft in history. On its first of several upcoming deep dives, Parker sped through the corona -- the ultra-hot cosmic oven of atmosphere that surrounds the sun -- and snapped the first image from virtually inside the sun, with Jupiter in the background.  As author of SUNDIVER I was given a kind of honorary sponsorship… and I approve!

Among these wonderfully vivid Mars lander photos, all are enthralling… and not one seems at all “suspicious” of anything “alien.” That is, except for the spoon. I mean… it’s a spoon!

The search for mysterious Planet X has intensified and narrowed, as an amazing little rock was found with a way-out orbit that helps narrow the search. Meanwhile, at 120x  Earth’s distance from the sun (almost 4x Pluto’s at 34 AU), a newly discovered dwarf planet 2018 VG18 and nicknamed “Farout” by its discovery team may be 500km across.

Wonderful images from the Hyabusa2 landers on the Ryugu asteroid. A terrific mission that has already returned hugely useful information. And soon, the explosive impactor and sample return probe will tell us so much more. Many great projects await knowing how firm or soft these things are. So far, it looks good for grabbing future samples to be analyzed at the coming Lunar Gateway lab… an actual use for that lab!

Across the last few years, we have seen space missions that should fill any citizen with pride, optimism and awe. We are an amazing civilization and those who are trying to defeat us with gloom are dismal beings, wherever they lie on the political spectrum. (Though on one side the gloomcasting is very well-organized, with a brutal goal.)

We are mighty explorers. And Kudos to Japan for this spectacular role they have played. They are pointing in the right directions and America should join them.

Indeed - this excellent Economist graphic shows our accomplishments - the orbital launch totals for each nation/year since Sputnik.

==What's Next? ==

(Note: I store up these items for a couple of months, so of course there's repetition!)

Lockheed has released vague images of its planned lunar lander. And it may surprise you to know I wish it well. 

Yeah, yeah, I repeat it too often: I am so "been there" about the Moon, and deem those political factions pushing for a new U.S. Apollo mission to be massively unwise and unhelpful, distracting America from bold and potentially profitable ventures that only we can do, elsewhere. But yes humanity will be returning to Luna soon, since the principal near term use for that sterile, dusty plain is tourism. Lockheed and others should sell landers - and a hotel module on the Orbital Gateway - for those Chinese, Russian, India, European and billionaire Apollo-wannabe tourists! Terrific. Let that subsidize our prospectors heading out to the real riches.

And sure. A closeup on NASA/ESA plans for the Lunar Gateway station… the various proposed modules and components.

With its Roadmaps to Ocean Worlds (ROW), NASA’s Outer Planets Assessment Group has set up the outlines for exploring known oceans with ice roofs... I call them "roofed worlds"... such as Enceledus, Europa and Titan. But there may be as many as eight or ten more! The exciting implication is that 90% of the stars you see in the sky may have a place where liquid water exists, not even requiring a particular placement in the star's "Goldilocks Zone." A good article.

The view on Mars! Wonderful 360 panorama of Mt. Sharp and the distant crater rim, taken by the Curiosity Rover as the dust storm clears.

A cool–colorful web site “Dear Moon” created by the Japanese billionaire who has reserved a slot for himself and artists and writers (ahem?) aboard Elon Musk’s first BFR to Luna. 

The NASA Near Earth Asteroid (NEA) Scout mission will demonstrate the capability of an extremely small spacecraft, propelled by a solar sail, to perform reconnaissance of an asteroid at low cost.  The camera is the ECAM M-50 from Malin Space Science Systems.  The sail deployment mechanism is a modification of those of NanoSail and the Planetary Society's LightSail 2 spacecraft.  

The NEA Scout will be one of 13 CubeSats to be carried with the Orion EM-1 mission into a heliocentric orbit in cis-lunar space on the maiden flight of the Space Launch System(SLS) scheduled to launch in 2019.  If it works, we should send dozens… along with maybe several advanced versions of Japan’s marvelous Hayabusa probe. 

Is the surface-roof of Europa's world ocean coated with jagged-icy spikes? At NIAC we've funded concepts for Europa explorers that might be able to cope with such "penetentes," but it wouldn't be easy. Almost as if the water world were defending itself against interlopers -- eerily predicted by Arthur C. Clarke in "2010."

I knew Bepi Colombo. Not well, but he was a true pioneer of many new ways to view/explore our universe. Now the BepiColumbo Mercury Transfer Module is off to map the ice at the poles of Mercury!

== Curiosities ==

A way-cool/vivid/gorgeous progressive rock video conveying some of the wondrous imagery produced by our space adventures, with a groovy musical accompaniment, newly produced by Talin.

Futurist David Brin discusses 3D printing in outer space and its sci-fi origins on Xploration Earth 2050. Watch this episode of Xploration Earth 2050.

The sky is very different in exotic wavelengths. So NASA is doing something cool... establishing new Constellations(!) based on the brightest objects in the X-Ray and Gamma Ray spectrum. One of the top beings so deified? GODZILLA!

This amusing essay compares Elon Musk’s BFR “starship” rocket in appearance etc to the single stage tail lander in the movie Destination Moon, inspired by Robert Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold The Moon,” which featured a moonship coordinated by an eccentric billionaire.

A shadowy op-ed campaign is now smearing SpaceX in space cities.  Not all modern disinformation campaigns are Russian or North Korean or Iranian… or Fox.

While we rejoice over the New Horizons Mission, it does seem odd that our fifth emissary into interstellar space should be carrying so little in the way of outreach gestures, like the Pioneer Plaque or the Voyager Golden Record. A couple of US stamps and quarters and a clump of Clyde Tombaugh’s ashes. Hm.

== Sanctimonious self-destruction ==

Alas, humanity's space endeavors ultimately depend on whether we can solve our current madness down here. An insanity in which one "side" wages open war against science and all fact-using professions.  Those who would wreck the Earth and risk global war to entrench world oligarchy are enemies of our future as a galactic species. 

Hence, we cannot afford stupidity among those who are fighting for the future! Yes, I'm talking about the "let's eat our own" campaign of sanctimony and self-destructive "zero-tolerance" on the American left.  

Should we elect more white-clad women politicians who've never done a single wrong thing in all their lives? Sure! 

Should we commit political seppuku in order to prove our utter purity? Hell no. 

Now Elizabeth Warren has been caught in a 35 year old act of stupid politically-incorrectness, claiming on an ancient job form to have been "American Indian." Stupid? Yep. Terminal? Well you and anyone else on Twitter gets to vote (alas) in mob justice.

It doesn't have to be this way. This circular firing squad - that has Putin/Murdoch/Trump giggling in delight - can be replaced with a process! Nelson Mandela showed us how to use truth and reconciliation, and sliding scales of harm vs time vs. victimhood vs good works... instead of howls and torches and pitchforks. Doofus almost-victimless idiocies from 35 years ago should be forgivable, in light of subsequent service and crawling across broken glass in contrition. Such a process would do vastly more to promote future, decent behavior.

I outline elsewhere a proposed method for due process in reputation that would give victims or accusers full credence they currently lack in criminal or civil courts. It would work. In contrast, farthest-lefties who rail "zero-tolerance" shall be judged by the same, ruthless standards and should read what happened to Robespierre.